‘No, you won’t,’ said Marston. ‘Sit down.’ He pushed the old man back on to the box. ‘Now listen. The man who loved your girl, who met her day after day, and who only came to your den of thieves for her sake, was——’ Marston paused.
‘Quick!’ gasped Heckett; ‘tell it me quick! His name—his name?’
‘Ralph Egerton!’ said Marston.
The old man’s clenched fist dropped to his side.
At that moment Gertie came in from her walk, Heckett called her to him and looked earnestly in her face.
‘By Jove, Marston!’ he exclaimed, ‘I believe you’re right.’
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MASTER OF EDEN VILLA.
There is a quiet little turning out of the Camden Road, where the whim of an architect has planted some hybrid arrangements in brick and woodwork which it would puzzle the unskilled in architectural nomenclature properly to describe.
They might be chalets if they were less like cottages ornés; they might be cottages ornés if they were less like bungalows; and they might be bungalows if there were not so much of the suburban villa about them. It is possible that the architect in preparing the plans saw, like a distinguished statesman, that there were three courses open to him, and, being a man who had some slight difficulty in making up his mind, determined to effect a compromise, and erect buildings which should embrace chalet, bungalow, and cottage orné, and also betray a suggestion of the suburban villa.
The houses are pretty enough in their way, are nicely set back in picturesque little gardens, and just the kind of places which a house agent can describe as ‘charming bijou residences.’